Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Book Cover Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
In a Series
Ransom Riggs
Fiction, Horror
Quirk Books
June 7 2011
Paperback
382
New York

Plot

Jake is working at his part time job when he gets a phone call from his Grandpa Portman, who has dementia.  He says, “Jakub, thank god.  I need my key.  They have found me.  I don’t know how, but they have.”  Jake phones his friend Ricky to come and pick him up and drive them to his Grandpa’s house.  When they arrive, Jake finds his Grandpa dead in the woods.

Jake is convinced that he sees a monster in the woods that night.  A few months pass by and Jake grows more convinced about what he saw in the woods that night.  He tries to tell others but nobody believes him.

Soon Jake’s birthday comes around.  When he opens his presents he is not impressed with them.  He hates all of them, except one, a present that his Aunt Susie says is from Grandpa Portman.  Jake runs into his room and opens the present.  It is a book called The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Jake notices an inscription on the book’s front cover.  It says;

 

                        To Jakub Magellun Portman,

                        and the worlds he has

                        yet to discover –

 

There is a letter attached to the book.  The letter states that “everyone wants to see you again, Abe,” and it is signed by Alma Le Fey Peregrine.  Jake looks for a return address and he finds it on the envelope.  It reads;

 

Cairnholm,

Cymru,

United Kingdom.

 

For weeks, Jake begs his father to take him to Cairnholm.  Eventually he agrees to do so.  When they arrive on the island, they go into the hotel (pub) to check-in.  The following morning, Jake goes to the orphanage his Grandpa told him stories about, and finds out it was blown to smithereens during the war.  After that, he returns to the hotel and goes to bed feeling awkward.  In the morning, he goes back to the orphanage, where he finds a briefcase.  He opens it with a crowbar.  When he opens it he sees a lot of photographs of “peculiar children.”

Jake looks up and sees a girl running outside.  He runs out the door and starts to chase her.  She runs through a small cave, and when Jake runs out she vanishes.  But suddenly she jumps out in front of him, and holds a knife up to his throat.  She asks, “Why are you chasing me?”  Jake replies that he doesn’t know why he is chasing her.  She then knocks Jake out and ties him up.  When Jake wakes up he hears the girl talking to herself, but it doesn’t look like she is talking to herself!  Then Jake realises that she has started to look at him, so he pretends to be asleep.  A dog starts to lick Jake’s face.  He has to get up …

I though this book was brilliant and I would give it 5 stars!  The only thing I didn’t like about this book is that it had a slow start.  That is why I couldn’t fit the whole book into this review.  On the other hand, it is no surprise that it is a New York Times Bestseller.

~ a review by Darragh (5th)